Smart Recycling with Tanner Cook from CleanRobotics

Sustainable waste disposal has been a global pain point for many decades. While the recent push toward comprehensive recycling has eased the pressure a little, there’s still much more to be done if we are to build a sustainable society. Luckily for us, the progression of AI brings new hope for feasible waste disposal, and today’s guest, the CTO and Co-Founder of CleanRobotics, Tanner Cook, is here to tell us how his company is playing its part in improving the disposal of waste, recycling, and compost.

In our conversation, we learn about CleanRobotics and why the company’s work is vital for sustainability, the ins and outs of their smart recycling product, TrashBot, and how it uses machine learning, how CleanRobotics ensures that its technology is always improving and up to date, and the impact of their AI-powered systems on sustainable waste management. Plus, Tanner offers up some noteworthy advice for other leaders of AI-powered start-ups before sharing his vision of the future of CleanRobotics.  

Key Points: 

• Introducing the CTO and Co-Founder of CleanRobotics, Tanner Cook. 
• Tanner’s background and how he ended up as a co-founder. 
• What CleanRobotics does and why this work is important for sustainability. 
• Assessing the information that CleanRobotics is able to extract from its TrashBot product. 
• The role of machine learning in TrashBot technology. 
• How they gather and annotate data with TrashBot. 
• The challenges of training machine learning models on imagery. 
• How Tanner and his team improve their technology and ensure that it’s always up to date. 
• The way CleanRobotics measures the impact of its technology. 
• Tanner’s advice to other leaders of AI-powered startups. 
• What he’d like CleanRobotics to achieve over the next five years. 

Quotes:

“[I] found myself looking at trash cans very closely with my co-founder, Charles Yhap, and realizing, at the bin level and where people dispose of things, there were a lot of problems going on, and a lot of problems that artificial intelligence and robotics could solve.” — Tanner Cook

“The number of rule sets are very diverse throughout the United States and throughout the world. The rules can easily change for what is and isn't recyclable when you drive 20 minutes outside of your city.” — Tanner Cook

“One of our personal tellers internally for CleanRobotics is sustainability. Putting in those checks and balances to make sure that we're actually doing something good - instead of just greenwashing - is very important to us.” — Tanner Cook

Links:

Tanner Cook on LinkedIn 

CleanRobotics 

TrashBot

Resources for Computer Vision Teams:

LinkedIn – Connect with Heather.

Computer Vision Insights Newsletter – A biweekly newsletter to help bring the latest machine learning and computer vision research to applications in people and planetary health.

Computer Vision Strategy Session – Not sure how to advance your computer vision project? Get unstuck with a clear set of next steps. Schedule a 1 hour strategy session now to advance your project.

Computer Vision Advisory Services – Monthly advisory services to help you strategically plan your CV/ML capabilities, reduce the trial-and-error of model development, and get to market faster.